The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Qupperneq 40

38
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Summer 1967
by Guttormur J. Guttormsson
As a maid full-grown, unloved, alone,
On the future she did stare,
With treasures great, in her wild estate
She awaited the white man there,
With her eyes so blue, she at length did view
His ship as it shoreward sped,
And his noble mien, and the dazzling sheen
Of the halo around his head.
Quite winsome and mild she was, tho’ wild,
And her friendship strong and whole,
That her love was real, did itself reveal
In the lights of her gentle soul.
With charming grace, they did embrace,
And heart to heart appealed,
With a heaving sigh, she opened her eye
And the whole world stood revealed.
He wove her a crown of the corn-stalk brown,
But a crown of laurel she wove,
For a prince was he and a princess she;
And their kingdom e’er prospered and throve.
From the soil so good, they take wealth and food—
They span death’s yawning pit,
And their palace high is the vaulted sky
By the vernal sun uplit.
And there they rear their children, so dear,
Progressive, polite and brave,
And for ever they do faithful stay
To their kinsmen across the wave.
If the swords are drawn, they all are one,
For in them has ever remained
The hero-blood of their fathers good,
That never dry has drained.
O, Canada dear, we do revere
Thee, mother so kind and free,
And life’s great door, shall close before
We turn our backs on thee.
In weal or woe, we ever show
That united in soul are we;
Tho’ of different tongue, yet we all belong
To the same dear family tree.
Translated by T. A. Anderson